


Pathos

by FrozenPenguin



Series: And I'll give you all my Hart(win AUs) [5]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5701552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenPenguin/pseuds/FrozenPenguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Harry Hart doesn’t quite understand the circumstances around his stay at the rehabilitation facility. The timing, the mission, and the facts simply do not match up. The one constant, however, is the presence of Eggsy</p><p>EDIT: After readers' responses, this now comes with a light angst warning, and a warning not to read while on public transportation, unless you do not mind crying in public.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pathos

Harry opens his eyes.

At once, the light streams in and catches in his retina from the wrong angle, and his every muscle stiffens in alarm at being kept in a room he doesn’t recognise. Except he does.

He turns his head, resting on a pillow that is not his particular down ones, sees the sparse décor, the glaring generic white wallpaper, all indicating a short-term residency, with high probability of being a medical facility, and he remembers. He was here yesterday, and the day before, too. He went to sleep in this room.

He decides to get up. He swings his legs over the edge of the low, single bed, puzzled as his feet come to touch a pair of slippers residing on the floor. He frowns in concentration as he slips them on.

The room is slightly chilly now that he is not underneath his duvet. He should look for his dressing gown.

Before he can move thus far, there is a knock on his door—he cannot see it, so around the corner then, about three meters distance, circa two inches thick, wood, metal handle, soft knocks so probably female—and, without his acknowledgement, a young woman dressed in the generic white of a healthcare professional enters.

“Good morning Mr Hart,” she greets him in a singsong like voice as she turns the corner. She is smiling widely, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, tired from an early morning and possibly a long night.

For a moment, his arm twitches and he goes to cover himself—the situation is fairly inappropriate is it not?—but the woman seems unbothered as she flitters though a door—a bathroom, he surmises—and returns with his dressing gown. They have done this before, he remembers, no later than just yesterday.

The woman assists him in his morning routine. She waits outside the bathroom while he finishes his business, but after that, she is there, waiting on him, hand and feet. She hands him his shirt, and ties his tie, hunts down his cufflinks and sprays his cologne. She doesn’t get everything quite right, but he smiles and nods his thanks either way. He is a gentleman, after all.

“Now see, there’s a handsome man!” she tells him brightly, once he has finished combing his hair into shape. Harry doesn’t think so. He feels far older than he should be at six-and-twenty; every day spent at these facilities sees him closer to sixty, he feels.

He wonders how Mr. Pickles is doing. Hopefully, Merlin is taking proper care of him. His diet will be impeccable, at least—no scraps from the table. Not for as long as his master is gone.

He thinks himself stupid for having ended up here, at a rehabilitation facility. He does not feel physically inadequate, just tired and stiff, though such is mostly the cause of immobility.  Head damage, surely, for the circumstances of the mission remains veiled in a mist that thickens with his attempts to unveil them.

He should have Merlin bring him a recording to watch, to help jog his memory.

The young woman leads him out to the dining room where breakfast is being served. He is one of the first patrons seated, with the exception of Mr Evans who more often than not seems to prefer waking early and taking long naps in the afternoon.

He nods his greetings to the elderly man – who must surely be in his seventies – and they exchange small chatter about the weather before falling quiet for their meal. The young woman serves him a plate of toast, eggs, beans and sausages, and then offers him tea. He accepts, specifying his one spoon of sugar and splash of milk. She never quite gets it right anyways – it is always a bit too sweet – but he doesn’t voice his complaint.

The morning goes on, until noontime rolls around, and Harry finds himself in the sitting room, reading. The radio is a low murmur in the background. Mrs Brentwood is leaning in to listen more closely, though Harry can hear it perfectly well from his seat across the room.

He cannot help but glance at the clock as it approaches midday, a bit of an anticipatory tingle running through him. Sure enough, at the beat of twelve, a door at the end of the hallway opens and the sound of trainers squeaking as they rub against the laminated floors approaches the sitting room.

Harry buries his nose a little further into his book, not truly reading the words his eyes skim across. A moment later, the figure of a young man – possibly around Harry’s age, give or take a few years – saunters into the room with comfortable strides.

His bright green eyes immediately find Harry, and a bright smile stretches across his handsome face. Harry, outwardly, barely acknowledges his presence with a brief glance. The man winks cheekily, and Harry averts his eyes entirely. He lifts his book a little higher to hide the redness he feels rising to his cheeks.

He schools his expression into one of mild pleasantness as the man makes his way around the room, greeting everyone with charming remarks and wit, until he finally gets to him.

“Harry,” he greets. “Beautiful day out, innit?”

“Indeed.”

“Was thinking we could get out of ‘ere. Want to grab some grub from that shop down by the park, maybe see about getting you a tan.”

“I suppose that would be agreeable.”

“Brill. C’mon, let’s get your coat.”

Harry does _not_ jump to his feet.

-

Gary, or rather Eggsy, is the man’s name. He comes by the facility nearly daily; a social support for the entire group and his own occupational therapist, Harry gathers, for after chatting casually with the others he always turns to Harry and invites him out for a walk around the grounds, or for a trip about town.

Harry always accepts.                       

Eggsy has become the most welcome part of his stay. He is a charming young man who in spite of the impression his character makes is smart and full of smiles and wit, and even while his choice of fashions is edgy and his accent is rough and his vocabulary unpolished, he is the very epitome of a gentleman, in his own rights. He is also very, _very_ attractive.

There is a lot of harmless flirting, but to Harry (who is quickly developing a crush on the other young man) their little quips and dares are the highlights of his days.

Sometimes, Harry fools himself into thinking the feeling is mutual, when Eggsy’s gaze meets his and (he imagines) his smile grows a bit brighter.

However, Eggsy has a ring. A treacherous gold band circled tight around his fourth finger. Its presence, glinting in the sunlight, never fails to have his stomach churn and coil tight.

The attraction certainly might be, mutual that is, but Eggsy is certainly not on the market. And, even if Eggsy _did_ favour him over his significant other, it wouldn’t be very professional of him, a Kingsman agent, to start an affair with his occupational therapist now, would it.

-

Eggsy leaves, and comes again the next day, and the next. Harry doesn’t quite remember when he started coming, but it must have been quite some time now. Some days he brings with him a dog – a rather overweight little pug affectionately named JB (“Nah, Harry—not James Bond. Jack Bauer, yeah?”).

The dog is always a hit among the group, passed from lap to lap to be cuddled by affectionate old hands. JB always seem to favour Harry, though, nosing and licking his fingers as if expecting to find treats hidden there. Some days, Harry saves a sausage for him.

Other days, Eggsy brings a little girl, around nine-years-old, who always brings flowers for the sitting room. At first, Harry is under the sinking impression that she is his daughter, as he certainly could be with their shared likeness, but his worries are washed away when he learns she is Eggsy’s little sister.

Much like JB, Miss Daisy takes to Harry like fish to water, favouring him above every other person in the room, even her own brother who finds his doting on her exceptionally amusing. He enjoys their little games, addressing her as “Young Lady” and performing the affectation of a posh butler as he asks about her day and “How do you take your tea”. One day, she brings a flower crown for Harry, already having made one for her brother and herself. They certainly do look like a ridiculous bunch with their matching headpieces, but Harry doesn’t take his off until he goes to bed that night.

Every now and again Eggsy brings a woman. She is petite and well groomed, blessed with soft, handsome features. She moves with a feline grace in her well-fitted suits, and is surely the epitome of desire in both sexes. She also wears a ring.

She is never anything but kind to him, but Harry’s mood still subsides whenever she comes along. Standing next to Eggsy, they look like the perfect young couple. Eggsy is always comfortable with her, allowing intimate touches and meaningful glances to be exchanged between them. Though he knows he has no right to feel miserable over their union, his heart clenches painfully all the same.

-

On the days Eggsy doesn’t come, Merlin does.

He is comfortable talking with his friend about most things, but he elects to keep his feelings for Eggsy in the shadows for now. Instead, he prompts Merlin to tell him about the HQ, and of whatever is happening around the world with him inebriated in the English countryside.

Merlin, while answering his questions curtly and concisely, is more interested in how Harry is feeling, how his days are, and – curiously – if he remembers how long he has been there.

“To help understanding the extent of your head trauma,” Merlin assures him.

Harry, not a medical professional at all, cannot do anything but nod in understanding, although he definitely doesn’t. Understand, that is.

-

Another day passes, and Eggsy comes a little later than anticipated, soaked to the bone. It’s raining outside. He is also alone, and Harry can’t help but feel rather grateful that he is. He still makes his regular greetings before making his way to Harry.

“You’re late,” he chides, but there’s a smile playing on his lips.

Eggsy mocks offense. “Says the infamous Harry Hart! I run late one bloody day and can count on you banging on about it until next week—like you was ever using that fancy watch of yours to actually tell the time.”

Harry can’t help but grin, because it’s certainly true.

Eggsy asks if they should move to his room, as they can’t walk outside in the rain that day. Harry is a bit hesitant to agree, for it is not a space made for hosting guests (and just not at all good enough for hosting Eggsy), but when Eggsy’s hand tugging at his prompts him to stand he follows the other man like JB after a treat, an obedient puppy.

Using Harry’s own supplies – moving around the room like he knows where everything is put – Eggsy makes them both tea. Harry is startled when he doesn’t ask for his preference, but still makes the best tea Harry has had since moving into the facility. He mentions as much.

Eggsy laughs and winks.

“How ‘bout you come with me next week, and I’ll make you as much tea as you can drink?”

The proposition comes on very sudden, and while it occurs to him that it is very likely another of their flirtatious quips, he oh so painfully wants to accept. To be with this man, even just for a night…

But Harry refuses to think on the temptation. Instead, he thinks to his upbringing, to his manners and morals, and then decided that enough is enough, that this situation is entirely unfair to him, to Eggsy and, of course, to his wife, and he needs to _fix it_.

So he turns to Eggsy with stern eyes and a set jaw as he tells him he is thinking on hiring another occupational therapist. Eggsy looks at him questioningly. “An occupational therapist?”

Harry steels himself, and takes a deep breath. “With my affections for you, as they are, I have to deem our interactions as of to date as very _improper_ in respect to our working relationship, and to your lovely Roxanne.”

“Roxy?” Eggsy tries again.

“Yes, Roxanne.” Harry feels an unreasonable ire growing in him with the pain of having to spell out this reality for the man who has unknowingly shaken his heart, and perhaps stolen a piece with him. “Your wife, the woman you’re married to.”

There is a moment of silence between them before the other man burst out laughing, a loud, breathless sound that is nothing like bells, but still rings like them in Harry’s ears. Yet he can’t help but feel offended as the man clutches his stomach and heaves for breath. After all, he has just confessed the dark troubles of his soul to him.

“Henry William Hart, you miserable bugger,” Eggsy grins as he finally catches his breath. He grabs hold of his hand, squeezing it tightly as his glimmering green eyes bore into Harry’s own. “ _Yes_ , I am married—to _you_ , you old wanker.”

Harry’s mouth goes dry, and he can’t think of how to reply.

Eggsy snorts at his stunned silence, and then removes the ring on his finger, leaving behind a prominent tan line from the summer. He hands the gold band to Harry and motions for him to take it into his.

“Read the inscription.”

He does. And then Harry looks up, a dozen thoughts dwindling through his mind, of how exceptionally handsome Eggsy is in this light, and how this must surely be another quip but he wants to _desperately_ believe it is not.

“But…how? Are we not both…?”

Another snort. “Bruv, I think we need to talk about the same-sex marriage legislation of 2013. You have an album with our weddin’ photos in your dresser over there, if you don’t believe me.”

The man quickly fetches said photos, and they sit down, together, on the sofa. For the rest of the visit, Harry doesn’t let go of Eggsy’s hand

-

When Harry wakes up, he is in a strange room. However, he quickly recognises the Kingsman themes hidden around. A safe house, presumably.

He gets dressed quickly, after a wash and cheap shave in the bathroom, and gathers his personal belongings once he feels adequate to be seen outside.

Opening the door, he walks out into the hall, intending to get back to Kingsman for his mission debrief at soonest convenience while thinking just at which coordinates he might be residing at present, but his exit is halted by a man in the standard healthcare uniform.

“Mr Hart, are you alright sir?”

“Yes, quite,” he says after a pause.

The man sighs heavily, but smiles professionally as he walks closer. “Mr Hart, it is four am in the morning. If you can’t sleep, how about a cuppa?”

“No, thank you, I’m absolutely fine,” Harry quickly amends, growing warier with each passing second. “Thank you for the hospitality, but I need to leave now.”

Yet, the man insists he stays, to his great frustration.

All he wants for is his own bed, or even one of the ridiculously ornate ones at HQ. It’s a miracle Harry doesn’t kill the man in his annoyance. But, he promises that Merlin will be coming by later, so he decides he will wait.

As he sits in the dining room, the man hands him a collection of pills. He calls them sleeping medicines. Harry doesn’t believe it for a second (despite the nurse’s high security clearing), and feigns swallowing them to a cup of tea far too milky for his tastes.

Merlin does come, thankfully.

His friend explains to him that he has suffered a head trauma, and is at a rehabilitation facility for observation: an easy enough truth to swallow, as he does have a reputation for being a bit reckless in the field.

As a test, presumably, Merlin asks him about the last he remembers of the mission.

So Harry recounts his extraction from Yugoslavia.

-

Harry feels far less energised when he wakes up the next morning.

After he is dressed though, he looks around and tells the nurse, “My wedding ring—do you know where it has gone off to—where I could have…”

“Oh! Of course Mr Hart, it’s on your night table. Hang on I’ll grab it for you—”

“No, that won’t be necessary, thank you,” he says quickly and dismisses her. He goes to the table and picks up the ring, softly tracing the inside of the ring that says

_Your Eggsy_

And he feels a lot sharper and brighter as he slips it onto his finger, secretly hoping that today is an Eggsy day.

-

It’s a rare occasion to have both Eggsy and Merlin visiting.

In fact, Harry cannot recall it ever happening. So they sit in his rooms and take tea, which he and _his husband_ prepare together with smiles and teasing touches. They must have done this many times before, but to Harry it is all remarkably refreshing and _new_.

As they talk, Eggsy asks if he would like a change of scenery.

“I would like that very much,” he says, thinking on where they shall walk today and which coat to wear, when Eggsy continues.

“Yeah, we were thinkin’ ‘bout tryin’ to take you home for a bit, the weekend maybe.”

 _Home._ He is going home with Eggsy.

Harry can’t help but be very excited, even though it bothers him very that he cannot remember their time living together.

“How’s Mr Pickles?” he suddenly asks.

Eggsy looks at him, stunned for a moment, expression twisting in uncertainty and about to say something when Merlin says, “Remind me where your last mission was.”

“St Petersburg. Beautiful city.”

“Never been,” Eggsy chirps in.

An idea blooms in Harry’s head. “Then I will take you.”

He will have to check his calendar for an upcoming birthday or anniversary.

-

When Harry wakes up, he is in a strange room. However, he quickly recognises the Kingsman themes hidden around. A safe house, presumably.

Before he can begin to get dressed, however, a nurse comes in to assist him, and insists on staying even though he dismisses her. Harry grows slightly annoyed. She tells him that Eggsy is coming to pick him up.

At the mention of his husband’s name, he feels calmer. The sooner he can get home, the better. Ukraine has been a bloody mess.

When Harry sees Eggsy that day, he brightens.

“Eggsy.” Thank god. “I’m glad you are here, darling, thank you for picking me up. I rather feel like making a lasagne today—shall we pop by the shops on our way home?”

“I’d like that very much,” Eggsy smiles, and there is a happy flush across his cheeks as Harry familiarly puts his hand on his back, leading him out of the building.

He plans on showing the man just how much he loves him that evening.

-

Harry wakes up to the familiar view of his ceiling—and an unfamiliar presence of another body against his.

He dreads it is who he thinks it is, and looking down confirms that yes; he has indeed taken Eggsy to his bed.

To his horror, that is the moment the boy choses to wake, his bright eyes blinking open, a sleazy grin spreads across his gorgeously handsome face as he stretches languidly across the sheets. “Good morning, Harry.”

“Eggsy,” he begins, a stone sinking in the pit of his stomach as the gravity of the situation unfolds before him. “I… I cannot express how sorry I am, I never intended to—not now—I must have had—the martinis, I must’ve…”

“Harry—Harry, look at me,” Eggsy’s voice cuts him off, all teasing smiles gone and face tinged with worry as his soft, calloused hands comes to hold his face, gently. Reassuringly. “What’s wrong?”

And Eggsy looks so beautifully dishevelled in the morning light.

“Fuck it.”

He kisses him.

“Do you have any idea how desirable you are?” he murmurs against his lips as Eggsy moans into his mouth, hands wandering and rediscovering skin from the night before.

“Harry, yesss,” the boy groans, pink lips parting tantalizingly as he lays him out and grinds down.

“I can’t take anything back now, I’m afraid—nor do I wish to—but I have to know,” he murmurs into his darling boy’s ear, “Are you certain?”

Eggsy scoffs underneath him. “Am I certain?”

“I am…old, Eggsy, far older than you,” he says seriously then. “Before too long, while you are still in your best years, mine will have passed and I’ll be unfit to be a good partner for you—”

“Harry,” Eggsy stops him. “Dunno what you’re banging on about, but you’re the fittest bloke this side of the universe. And if I wasn’t certain I wouldn’t have married you, would I?”

“Married?” Harry laughs, “You should worry about your recruitment first.”

And just like that, the smile slips from Eggsy’s face, and Harry goes still.

“Harry,” he starts, rough voice gone soft, eyes that had boldly found his not moments ago now struggling to hold his gaze. “We, um… I made Kingsman, y’know. I live here. With you. As your husband.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look,” he says, grabbing Harry’s hand, showing off the rings. “We’ve been married for five years now. You just have trouble rememberin’ sometimes…”

There is a pause between them. Eggsy tightens his hold on his hand.

“Merlin will come by later. I’ve got a mission coming up, so we’ll go back to the village, yeah? It’s where you stay usually… it’s close to HQ.”

Harry remains silent.

-

Harry wakes up in an unfamiliar room.

His head is spinning slightly, and he feels drowsy, tired.

 _Drugs_ , his mind supplies him. _I’m being held captive_.

When the enemy soldier, a young woman in her twenties, walks into the room, he immediately attacks.

-

Daisy comes along with Eggsy that day. Her hair is put up in bright, swishy pigtails that she loves to show off as she twirls across the floors.

Almost immediately after, she runs up to Harry to tell him her birthday is coming up, and if he “would be so kind as to accept my invitation” to her celebratory tea party the following afternoon.

Harry quickly agrees, and tells her what a splendid idea that is, but then Eggsy, who has been watching them, interrupts.

“Hey, flower, I don’t think Harry can make it that day.”

“Nonsense, I have no prior arrangements and I am perfectly capable of attending,” Harry argues when he sees the girl’s smile drop.

Eggsy sighs, and says no more, but he looks a little more tired than he usually does.

When he and Daisy goes to leave later, Harry pretends he doesn’t hear the girl ask her brother, further down the hallway, if Harry is really going to come.

“He would love to, y’know. Just, sometimes, he doesn’t have very good weeks…like this one. But he wants to, very, very much.”

-

One day, Harry finds Lee Unwin visiting him in his rooms at the rehabilitation facility.

“I’m sorry I have gotten myself into this predicament,” he tells him, honestly. “The moment they let me leave I’ll go back to monitoring your candidacy, of course. Let this be a warning to you, not to be too reckless in the field.”

He laughs at his own little joke, and Lee quirks a small smile. Yet there is something off about his bright young candidate that day. He seems a little distressed, and has ever since Harry greeted him when he entered the room just a minute earlier. He looks at him as if searching for something, but with a demeanour that says he doesn’t find it.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, Harry asks him about his wife.

“I’m sorry to have the training take you away from her like this. You will see her soon enough, I hope. Your marksmanship is excellent, by the way.”

“Thanks, Harry,” Lee says. His voice is a bit different from what Harry remembers.

Then again, he is here because of a head trauma, so such things could easily be distorted by his own mind.

He smiles fondly at the man. “I seem to remember you told me you have a young son. Gary, was it?”

“Eggsy, actually.”

-

One day, when Merlin comes by, but Eggsy doesn’t, Harry sits in his rooms, looking out the window into the autumn scenery of the countryside.

“I have failed him, haven’t I.”

Merlin doesn’t say anything for a long while.

“He loves you.”

“I know. I know…”

Another minute tick by as the leaves fall off the trees outside.

Merlin clears his throat then, reaching into his pocket for his phone, finger hovering over the call button, anticipating. “Harry… do you want to talk to Eggsy?”

Harry turns to him, brows furrowed.

“I’m sorry, I must have spaced out. Eggsy? Lee’s son?” his frown deepens. “Why would I… he is but a child.”

Merlin puts his phone away.

Harry suddenly remembers something. “Oh, will you be staying for dinner? I will have to tell the nurses first, they were quite cross the last time you dropped in unannounced.”

-

Harry opens his eyes.

At once, the light streams in and catches in his retina from the wrong angle, and his every muscle stiffens in alarm at being kept in a room he doesn’t recognise. Except he does.

He turns his head, resting on a pillow that is not his particular down ones, sees the sparse décor, the glaring generic white wallpaper, all indicating a short-term residency, with high probability of being a medical facility, and he remembers. He was here yesterday, and the day before, too. He went to sleep in this room.

He decides to get up. He swings his legs over the edge of the low, single bed, puzzled as his feet come to touch a pair of slippers residing on the floor. He frowns in concentration as he slips them on.

The room is slightly chilly now that he is not underneath his duvet. He should look for his dressing gown.

Before he can move thus far, there is a knock on his door—he cannot see it, so around the corner then, about three meters distance, circa two inches thick, wood, metal handle, soft knocks so probably female—and, without his acknowledgement, a young woman dressed in the generic white of a healthcare professional enters.

“Good morning Mr Hart,” she greets him in a soft, careful voice as she turns the corner. She is smiling widely, but it’s nervous and cautious and doesn’t quite reach her eyes, tired from an early morning and possibly a long night.

For a moment, his arm twitches and he goes to cover himself—the situation is fairly inappropriate is it not?—but the woman mostly avoids looking at him as she flitters though a door—a bathroom, he surmises—and returns with his dressing gown. They have done this before, he remembers, no later than just yesterday.

The woman assists him in his morning routine, but mostly lets him do as he pleases. She hands him his shirt, and his tie, hunts down his cufflinks and reaches for his cologne. She doesn’t strictly need to help him at all, but he smiles and nods his thanks either way. He is a gentleman, after all.

“You look very handsome today Mr Hart,” she tells him softly, once he has finished combing his hair into shape. Harry thinks so, too, although he feels far older than he should be at six-and-twenty.

He wonders how Mr. Pickles is doing. Hopefully, Merlin is taking proper care of him. His diet will be impeccable, at least—no scraps from the table. Not for as long as his master is gone.

He thinks himself stupid for having ended up here, at a rehabilitation facility. He does not feel physically inadequate, tired or stiff in any way. Head damage, surely, for the circumstances of the mission remains veiled in a mist that thickens with his attempts to unveil them.

He should have Merlin bring him a recording to watch, to help jog his memory.

The young woman leads him out to the dining room where breakfast is being served. He is the first patron seated. He curiously hasn’t seen Mr Evans in a great while. Perhaps the man has left already, without anyone notifying him—or perhaps he has taken to sleeping in.

He falls quiet for his meal. The young woman serves him a plate of toast, eggs, beans and sausages, and then offers him tea. He accepts, specifying his one spoon of sugar and splash of milk. Instead of making it, she hands him the sugar bowl and the milk for him to do it himself. It is very good tea.

The morning goes on, until noontime rolls around, and Harry finds himself in the sitting room, reading. The radio is a low murmur in the background. Mrs Brentwood is leaning in to listen more closely, though Harry can hear it perfectly well from his seat across the room.

He feels his heart race a little, as he looks at the clock and it’s nearing noon, but for some reason he doesn’t quite know why. Nonetheless, at the beat of twelve, a door at the end of the hallway opens and the sound of trainers squeaking as they rub against the laminated floors approaches the sitting room.

A very handsome young man he has never seen before comes into the room, smiling brightly at him with a warm fondness that makes his heart beat just a little faster.

“Hey Harry,” he says, smiling. “You wanna go grab some lunch at the bakery?”

Harry swallows, thickly. “I would be very happy to, but…” he frowns. “…I’m terribly sorry. It seems I cannot recall your name.”

There is a twitch of something in the man’s eyes, but before Harry can analyse it, he grins brightly and says, “Eggsy. My name’s Eggsy.”

It fits him, strangely, and Harry can’t help but smile back.

“Alright then, Eggsy. Let me grab my coat.”

“Yes, Harry.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading!
> 
> Neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia are terrible illnesses that steal our loved ones in ways very different from death, but at times just as painful.
> 
> I've worked with dozens of patients with various forms and stages of dementia and alzheimers, and their joys and troubles can be very difficult to deal with. Some don't recognise their children or grandchildren, or their own spouses at times.
> 
> I wanted to write more of Harry's character, and I've been inspired to attempt a fic like this for a long time. Hopefully, it turned out alright. Now, I'll get back to procrastinating/studying for my exams... Thank you again!!


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